Thursday, June 29, 2017

It
was back in 1987 that I first began a serious, in depth study into the Church
of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (hereafter LDS Church or Mormon/s). [For
more on my early exploration into the LDS Church, see the opening paragraph of
THIS
POST.] I began collecting (and reading) hundreds of books, journals,
articles, et al., which included the monthly journal, Dialogue: A Journal of
Mormon Thought. At that time, I was able to obtain all the past issues up
to 1987, and began a subscription. As I started reading through the issues, one
of the many articles that caught my attention was Richard Van Wagoner's and
Steven Walker's, "Joseph Smith: 'The Gift of Seeing'" (Vol. 15.2,
Summer 1982 - LINK).

Wagoner
and Walker examined the extant eyewitness accounts concerning the translation
process of the Book of Mormon, and provided the following synopsis of those
accounts:

These eyewitness accounts
to the translation process must be viewed in proper perspective. Most were
given in retrospect and may be clouded by the haze of intervening years. Many
were reported second hand, subject to skewing by nonwitnesses. Yet there are
persistent parallels among these scattered testimonies. Consensus holds that
the "translation" process was accomplished through a single seer
stone from the time of the loss of the 116 pages until the completion of the
book. Martin Harris's description of interchangeable use of a seer stone with
the interpreters, or Urim and Thummim, refers only to the portion of
translation he was witness to—the initial 116 pages. The second point of
agreement is even more consistent: The plates could not have been used directly
in the translation process. The Prophet, his face in a hat to exclude exterior
light, would have been unable to view the plates directly even if they had
been present during transcription. (Page 53.)

Prior to this detailed
article, the common perception of the translation process was much different
among the vast majority of Mormons. Artist depictions and written descriptions
have Joseph Smith directly using the metal plates and the "Urim and
Thummim" at the same time in the translation process. Wagoner and Walker make
reference to this dichotomy between the extant accounts and the common Mormon
understanding, writing:

The concept of a single
seer stone is another problem area, for we have been taught since the Prophet's
day that the Urim and Thummim were used. The term itself is problematic. The
Book of Mormon does not contain the words "Urim and Thummim." Ammon
describes the instrument as "the things . . . called
interpreters"—"two stones which were fastened into the two rims of a
bow" which were "prepared from the beginning" and "handed
down from generation to generation, for the purpose of interpreting
languages" (Mosiah 8:13, 28:13-14). Joseph Smith adds in the Pearl of
Great Price that "God had prepared them for the purpose of translating the
book" (Joseph Smith—History 1:35). Furthermore, the Nephite interpreters
were not referred to as Urim and Thummim until 1833, when W. W. Phelps first
equated the two in the first edition of the Evening and Morning Star: "It
was translated by the gift and power of God, by an unlearned man, through the
aid of a pair of Interpreters, or spectacles—(known, perhaps in
ancient days as Teraphim, or Urim and Thummim)." (Ibid.)

I was soon able to
ascertain that Wagoner's
and Walker's well researched article had little impact on the vast majority of
believing Mormons. Of the literally dozens of LDS missionaries that have
contacted me during the subsequent 30 years, it was not until this last year
that any of them had knowledge of the single stone in the hat translation
process. The same held true with lay Mormons I have met (in person and on
message boards). However, this near unanimous consensus understanding started
to undergo reductions at the end of 2015, and this due to an article published
in the official LDS Church magazine, Ensign. The October, 2015 issue
contained a contribution by three LDS scholars— Mark Ashurst-McGee, Robin S. Jensen and
Richard E. Turley Jr.—under the title, "Joseph the Seer". [Full issue available
online HERE.]

This Ensign article
(pp. 48-55) mentions the use of, "at least one other seer stone in
translating the Book of Mormon, often placing it into a hat in order to block
out light" (p. 51). It also includes a large color photograph of the
"chocolate-colored stone", that "has long been associated with
Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon translation effort" (p. 53). For the
first time in LDS Church history, knowledge of a single stone in a hat
translation process had been disseminated amongst the majority of lay Mormons.

But, as
important as the Ensign article was/is for Mormon studies, it was my
recent purchase and reading of the above pictured book that prompted me to
write this post.

Joseph
Smith's Seer Stones, by Michael Hubbard MacKay and Nicholas J.
Frederick, was published in 2016, through B.Y.U.'s "Religious Studies
Center" (LINK). I obtained
this book in early May of this year, and read it the very next day. The
following is from the back dust-cover of the book:

When the
Church released photos of the brown seer stone that was owned and used by
Joseph Smith, the news ignited a firestorm of curiosity and controversy. People
wanted more information and wondered why they weren't aware of the stone's
existence before.

This book
discusses the origins of Joseph Smith's seer stones and explores how Joseph
used them throughout his life in a way that goes beyond translating the Book of
Mormon. I also traces the provenance of the seer stones once they leave his
possession.

Joseph
Smith's Seer Stones, is a book of 243 pages, and by far the
most comprehensive treatment I have yet to read on the topic of Joseph Smith's
"seer" stones. It is well written, and easy to read. It references
dozens of other important contributions that will provide the more curious
investigators with days, if not months, of informative reading. In upcoming
posts (the Lord willing), I shall delve into some of those works that I have
obtained, and have been researching. Until my next post, I would like to
recommend to folk interested in this topic that they look into the following
article from BYU Studies, 55.1, pp. 73-93 (also published in 2016):

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Getting History Right

The Reformers unequivocally rejected the teaching authority of the Roman Catholic Church. This left open the question of who should interpret Scripture. The Reformation was not a struggle for the right of private judgement. The Reformers feared private judgement almost as much as did the Catholics and were not slow to attack it in its Anabaptist manifestation. The Reformation principle was not private judgement but the perspicuity of the Scriptures. Scripture was ‘sui ipsius interpres’ and the simple principle of interpreting individual passages by the whole was to lead to unanimity in understanding. This came close to creating anew the infallible church…It was this belief in the clarity of Scripture that made the early disputes between Protestants so fierce. This theory seemed plausible while the majority of Protestants held to Lutheran or Calvinist orthodoxy but the seventeenth century saw the beginning of the erosion of these monopolies. But even in 1530 Casper Schwenckfeld could cynically note that ‘the Papists damn the Lutherans; the Lutherans damn the Zwinglians; the Zwinglians damn the Anabaptists and the Anabaptists damn all others.’ By the end of the seventeenth century many others saw that it was not possible on the basis of Scripture alone to build up a detailed orthodoxy commanding general assent. (A.N.S. Lane, “Scripture, Tradition and Church: An Historical Survey”, Vox Evangelica, Volume IX – 1975, pp. 44, 45 – bold emphasis mine.) [http://www.biblicalstudies.org.uk/pdf/vox/vol09/scripture_lane.pdf]

And this one thing at least is certain; whatever history teaches, whatever it omits, whatever it exaggerates or extenuates, whatever it says and unsays, at least the Christianity of history is not Protestantism. If ever there were a safe truth, it is this…To be deep in history is to cease to be a Protestant. – John Henry Newman